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Has anyone used this book in gameplay? I'm curious as to how well it mimics the actual Word of Darkness settings in terms of the archtypes and what you can do with them. It looks like it has a good setting for a horror game.
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Monte seems to "get" the "essence" of a game and then can quite adequately (or better...I may be being unkind with the word "adequately") translate it to a new system.
He did the same with Call of Cthulhu.
In my opinion, it is a "reinvention" and "coordination" of both. It's World of Darkness with a D20 spin. (Or...it's D20 with a WoD mindset).
I don't think the goal was to perfectly translate WoD... I think it was to blend WoD with D20. What I mean there is like translating an adventure from one D&D edition to another. You don't say "it has 3 chimera, so I'll use three chimera". You determine the role of the chimera and then find a suitable substitution in the appropriate ruleset (which might be, but usually is not, a chimera).
Anyway, that's how I feel abut Monte's WoD. It's true to the flavor, but there are limitations to the system that are different fromt the limitations to the WoD system. Level is one. That's fairly antithetical to the WoD system. (Forgive me if I'm somewhat off in this last bit, I am going from memory of Monte's book when it first came out.)
Assuming I remember correctly, WoD "level" is not so impactful as D&D level (for good or ill). This is a significant change (and in my mind, THE significant change) that results from a fair translation. Does it capture the WoD mindset? Well....partly. But it is, by necessity, a change. Putting a number next to your power level is not the "storytelling" way, from what I remember (please, provide info that makes me eat my foot/own words if I'm off...again, it has been a while).
So, with those caveats, I'd say that Monte's version is a faithful translation as much as anyone could do it. It holds true to both, and, as such, sacrifices a bit to both. It has an excellent balance in such a sacrifice, and as an imparial reader, I find that balance to be exactly how I'd hope it would be.
In final summation: Monte did it. He did it right. BUT...it is not the same game. It can't be. It's a very evocative "vision" of the game, but with a D20 twist...and I can't imagine that D20 twist being done better.
I'm curious as to how well it mimics the actual Word of Darkness settings in terms of the archtypes and what you can do with them.
Very poorly.
But then, it's not trying to do that anyway. It's actually a totally different game, with a totally different setting. From the ground up, kinda thing.
Some like it, for what it is. But if you buy it, hoping for 'WoD d20', you'll be hoping for a long time to come. Or, you can have a hack at it yourself. Or, check the webs for someone else's hack.
Personally, it doesn't appeal, but on balance I'd have to say that there have been enough cheery perspectives on forums, that well, there might be something good about it. Maybe.
I bought it thinking it would be WoD D20, and was sadly mistaken. If this were a completely new D20 game with no mention of "WoD" anywhere it may have made it into my gameplay, but having played both D20 games and WoD games, this disapointed me in both realms.
The game itself is a good read, and it might work as a game... but I just can't get into it.
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WW basically gave Monte Cook the right to do whatever he wanted with the WoD IPs, and he built a completely different universe using them. It is *not* the old or new WoD with the Storyteller system. It's a post-apocalyptic world with different types of supernatural creatures creeping into our world. You're playing one of the monsters, but it's more like a dark-edged Fantastic Four kind of game, with creatures allying with each other to save/sink the world together, rather than a world of subtle politics between clans, tribes, houses and what-have-you.
Do not expect the WoD, and you'll get a blast out of McWoD.
I was excited until I learned that Vampires are not vampires. They're the ghosts of dead people living in the bodies of modern people. You're not 300 years old, you're a teenager who's possessed by a ghost from 300 years ago. I don't know why he would go in that direction but he did. Basically, it missed the point. Not only did he change the setting (as expected) and slap on the names of famous WoD clans/creatures, he changed the fundamental concepts of many of these creatures and slapped names on them. Vampires. How could anyone screw up vampires?!
Other than that, it's a d20 book. I could go over the finer details, but basically it's just not as good as CoCd20 was. There he took the idea and changed the mechanics. Here he's totally re-concepting very basic ideas (vampires) and it's a really confusing change.
To a stranger, the ideasbehind the setting wouldn't make sense, I dno't think. Really non-standard, sure, but I don't think he hit the nail on the head for what I would have wanted: a new book allowing me to d20 in vampires, werewolves and mages for my d20 Modern game, or even regular D&D games.
I was excited until I learned that Vampires are not vampires. They're the ghosts of dead people living in the bodies of modern people. You're not 300 years old, you're a teenager who's possessed by a ghost from 300 years ago. I don't know why he would go in that direction but he did. Basically, it missed the point. Not only did he change the setting (as expected) and slap on the names of famous WoD clans/creatures, he changed the fundamental concepts of many of these creatures and slapped names on them. Vampires. How could anyone screw up vampires?!
I blame Joss Whedon. Don't Buffy Vampires basically work like this? Out goes the soul, in goes a demonic spirit. Retain the memories and personality quirks, but get a lot more violent.
I really loved Montes take. I am not so sure about the rules, seem too fiddly in gameplay. But the world and especially the "races" are interesting.
And I also like that he's basically turning the d20 system "upside" down - races work like classes, classes work like races.
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I blame Joss Whedon. Don't Buffy Vampires basically work like this? Out goes the soul, in goes a demonic spirit. Retain the memories and personality quirks, but get a lot more violent.
Only kinda sorta. Like in Bram Stoker's dracula, or Anne Rice, you add the blood and it changes the person. Buffy has the demon, sure, but it's part of the mythos: vamp someone, they're changed into this new type of creature: the vampire. Even WoD has this, as the struggle inside the character is to retain their humanity rather than give in to "the beast".
Monte has the Vampires as simply normal humans taken over by the ghosts of other normal humans. For some reason these ghosts also like blood. The inner conflict is whether they're themselves or this new, historical identity. Dissociative identity disorder.
That's different from repressed sexual urges, represented by a lust for blood/intimate contact with people's necks. Or from, well, the collection of vampire clans from the original game; y'know, the popular one?
vampires: "Erasmus, what are you doing?" "calling to the children of the night, for I am a vampire! Bloooooood!"
Monte Cook vampires: "Rodney, why are you wearing my skirt and pumps?" "Don't call me Rodney, I'm really Lady Agatha Pettigrew, a 19th century heiress, and I demand blood... and crumpets!"
EPIC FAIL
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I really loved Montes take. I am not so sure about the rules, seem too fiddly in gameplay. But the world and especially the "races" are interesting.
And I also like that he's basically turning the d20 system "upside" down - races work like classes, classes work like races.
Yeah, I think I'll have to look over the rules some more. Other than the vamps it doesn't look too bad, conceptually.
Could be fun if the vamps were reconcepted, I guess.
Has anyone used this book in gameplay? I'm curious as to how well it mimics the actual Word of Darkness settings in terms of the archtypes and what you can do with them. It looks like it has a good setting for a horror game.
I've bought it but not gone over it in depth. I was disappointed it was not going to be WoD d20 but I knew that going in and bought it on sale with eyes wide open.
It reconcepts the vamps and werewolves as spirit possession but retains a lot of mechanics flavor (vampire discipline names and flavors, etc.) so it is fairly easy to reuse the mechanics with straight WoD setting stuff. It is not everything you would want for a complete translation but a good base to start.
There is also something about Mages and some sort of super anti-supernatural mortals but I forget the specifics.
It is modern dark supernatural world with Cthulhu apocalypse having hit Minnesota. So not oWoD or nWod but easily adaptable.
Only kinda sorta. Like in Bram Stoker's dracula, or Anne Rice, you add the blood and it changes the person. Buffy has the demon, sure, but it's part of the mythos: vamp someone, they're changed into this new type of creature: the vampire. Even WoD has this, as the struggle inside the character is to retain their humanity rather than give in to "the beast".
Monte has the Vampires as simply normal humans taken over by the ghosts of other normal humans. For some reason these ghosts also like blood.
In lots of ancient mythologies ghosts want blood. In the Odyssey Odyseus goes to the underworld and brings sacrificed sheep's blood for the dead shade of Tiresias to drink so he can manifest and give Odyseus a prophecy. He is swarmed by dead shades who want to drink the blood and become temporarily more manifest/part living. Odyseus has to fight them off to save it for the people he wants to talk to (Tiresias, Achilles, Agamemnon, Ajax, his mom, one of his crew he left behind). Even after giving his mom the blood she can talk but he passes through her when he tries to hug her.
Has anyone used this book in gameplay? I'm curious as to how well it mimics the actual Word of Darkness settings in terms of the archtypes and what you can do with them. It looks like it has a good setting for a horror game.
In lots of ancient mythologies ghosts want blood. In the Odyssey Odyseus goes to the underworld and brings sacrificed sheep's blood for the dead shade of Tiresias to drink so he can manifest and give Odyseus a prophecy.
Ooooh, good call. I see your point, but that's hardly associated with all ghost stories, or with vampires themselves. Interesting association, though.
I've gone over it in some more depth, btw, and found some bad math. MC has loopholes in acouple systems he's made now:
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Originally Posted by p73
medium or larger animals are worth one vitae for every four points of Constitution, though each Vitae taken from
them still deals only two points of Constitution damage
so you have to do 4 Con damage for a Vitae, but when you do you only do 2 Con damage? Um, how do I drain 4 Con but only do 2 Con damage? That makes no sense. Too much coffee, not enough sleep!
Arcana Evolved (otherwise a landmark book for 3e) he forgot to mention how spellcasters learn or store spells or spells known! Like, totally left that out of both editions of the game.
Otherwise a brilliant book that I thought generally worked, and was the first series I picked up with Mike Mearls writing for it; likewise the art is very fun.
I think he expects DMs to make house rules, or change the RAW for his stuff. So many of the books he puts out now are collections of house rules.
Arcana Evolved (otherwise a landmark book for 3e) he forgot to mention how spellcasters learn or store spells or spells known! Like, totally left that out of both editions of the game.
They know all spells. Seriously; they have access to the entire list. When they rest, they pick their prepared spells for the day, and cast any of them using "slots" from their spells per day. It's a combination of cleric (having access to all spells and preparing a subset of them) and sorcerer (being able to cast prepared spells in any order or quantity, over and over again).
Back on topic, though, I checked out MCWoD once or twice at the bookstore, but it hit when I had grown enchanted with SWSE and was basically moving away from mechanics-heavy games. It seemed quite a bit denser than I was interested in at the time. Specifically, it read as even crunchier than 3.5.
Would those who have played it call it a heavily crunch-oriented system?
They know all spells. Seriously; they have access to the entire list. When they rest, they pick their prepared spells for the day, and cast any of them using "slots" from their spells per day. It's a combination of cleric (having access to all spells and preparing a subset of them) and sorcerer (being able to cast prepared spells in any order or quantity, over and over again).
-O
do you have a page number? I agonized over this for weeks a couple years back, and I couldn't find anything. I made up an entry and posted it on his site, especially for exotic spells, which was fun. But yeah, if you know where I can find the page, you would be my hero!!!
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